On his first full day back on the job this past January, New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton sounded like a man who knew just what had to be done to return his team to prominence.

Payton said he’d been jotting down to-do notes on a stack of yellow sketchpads, as he served his season-long, 10-month suspension away from his team as his punishment in the infamous bounty scandal.

“I’m excited to get back,” he told a gaggle of reporters and camermen at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala. “There’s a lot we have to do.”

A two-year NFL investigation had found the Saints guilty under Payton’s watch of running a “bounty” program from 2009-11. Some 22 to 27 defenders were rewarded with under-the-table cash payments for such dubious achievements as “cart-offs” and “knockouts.”

In Payton’s absence last year, the Saints limped to a 7-9 record under interim head coach Joe Vitt. Quarterback Drew Brees and the offence still put up prolific passing numbers a lot of the time, but the Saints defence was historically bad.

Yet here they are again, looking as powerful as ever with a 5-0 record as they play the 4-1 New England Patriots on Sunday at Gillette Stadium (4:25 p.m. EDT, Sportsnet East and Citytv).

How have they bounced back so fast? How is it that the Saints are the last team in the NFC without a loss?

The Top 5 reasons:

1. PAYTON’S IMPACT

It starts and ends with the head coach himself.

Payton, 49, is in his seventh season as head coach of the Saints, excluding last year. He has such a commanding presence in that locker room, his forced departure left a huge leadership and patriarchal void.

Payton himself said missing coaching wasn’t the hardest part about being away. Rather, it was in not having any contact with anyone on the team –men he counts practically as family, he said.

“The players and coaches all went through something that was difficult. The amount of time that you spend with the players and your fellow coaches is extraordinary. They’re like your family in a lot of ways. You want to see them do well. You want to see them have success.”

They are having success now in large part because Payton is back running the offence, and calling plays. He’s masterful at it. Remember, this is a coach who has installed separate game plans for each quarter of games, including Super Bowl XLIV, to keep defences forever guessing and off-balanced.

Just on Thursday, Payton explained why his team self-scouts itself to avoid predictability.

“I think many good teams have certain tendencies,” he said. “You just don’t want those to be 90-10 (between pass and run, for instance). If when we do our own self-scout, those numbers can be closer to 70-30 or 65-35, that’s helpful.”

2. ROB RYAN’S DEFENCE

Payton never got to work much with last year’s new defensive coordinator, Steve Spagnuolo. Just as well. Spagnuolo failed disastrously with his 4-3 schemes.

Last year’s Saints defence statistically was one of the worst in NFL history, let alone in club annals. It allowed more total yards (7,042) than any NFL team ever has, breaking a record that had stood for 31 years. And the 434 points against was second most in club history.

On Payton’s second full day back on the job in January, he fired Spagnuolo. Soon thereafter he hired Rob Ryan, longtime NFL defensive coordinator with Oakland, Cleveland and Dallas.

“I spent a lot of time in researching Rob,” Payton said in the spring. “I kept hearing ‘passionate,’ ‘loyal.’ I kept hearing ‘confident,’ and ‘the players really play hard for him.”

Ryan trashed Spagnuolo’s 4-3 and installed his 3-4 base. The change in effectiveness has been nothing short of stunning.

Only three teams in the league are allowing fewer points per game than the Saints’ 14.6. In total defence they rank 11th, allowing just 330.4 yards per game, compared to 440.1 last year.

And get this. Not one team has scored more than 18 points on the Saints this year, and that includes Atlanta, Miami and Chicago.

This New Orleans defence is aggressive, too. Only four teams have more takeaways than the Saints’ 11, only four have more interceptions than their seven, and only six have more sacks than their 15.

While aggressive defences run in the family -- New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan is Rob’s twin brother, and they’re sons of famous NFL defensive guru Buddy Ryan -- Ryan is fast to spread the credit on the Saints coaching staff for the turnaround.

“We’ve got a lot of ideas bouncing around in our room, I can promise you,” he told reporters on Friday. “The biggest thing is, we’re not a blitzkrieg by any chance. When we want to call blitzes, we want them to work.

“I think everybody has their systems, but I think the difference between winning and losing is situational football.”

3. DREW BREES

Brees last year led the NFL in passing yardage (324 per game) and TD passes (43). On the downside, he also tied for the league lead with 19 interceptions.

That contrast signified the tough year he and the Saints offence had in 2012: moments of brilliance undermined by more than Brees’ usual number of drive- or even game-killing mistakes.

This year, the 34-year-old Brees is even more prolific a passer. And his passer rating is more than 10 points better.

Beyond numbers, Brees has been clutch, especially in rescuing the team with a late winning drive after a lacklustre offensive day across the board at Tampa Bay.

4. A HEALTHY JIMMY GRAHAM

The superstar tight end is a big reason the Saints offence is so much better this year.

The 26-year-old is in his fourth year, and he’s never been better. Graham leads the NFL in receiving yards with 593, and that includes all the wideouts. With 37 catches he trailed only Atlanta’s now-injured Julio Jones through five weeks, and of course led all tight ends.

Graham is much like Tom Brady’s famed dynamic tight-end duo of Aaron Hernandez (now jailed) and perennially injured Rob Gronkowski. That is, Graham is uncommonly athletic and fleet for his size (6-foot-7, 265), and he’s sure-handed and instinctive.

Graham has become Brees’ go-to receiver and is a matchup nightmare for defences.

This is the kind of production that many foresaw for him a year ago, but Graham battled ankle and wrist injuries in 2012.

As Saints offensive players so often do, Graham said his success and that of his offence this season goes back to Payton.

Graham said it’s so difficult for defences to take elements away from the Saints offence, “because of our personnel, the weapons we have, the ability of Drew to go (in his read progressions) from one to five, back to one, and Sean Payton’s play-calling.

“(Payton) is brilliant in how he understands that, and how he is still able to get the guys he wants to be open.”

5. FINISHING GAMES

Last year it seemed the Saints found ways to lose. The heartbreaking overtime loss last September to then lowly Kansas City comes to mind.

This year they’re keeping their pose at crunch time, such as in Week 1 when they knocked off hated NFC South division rival Atlanta. The Saints led by six with about a minute left, and the Falcons had a first-and-goal from the New Orleans’ 7. Two incompletions and a four-yard gain put the ball at the New Orleans’ 3 on fourth down.

Indeed, just about every facet of the Saints team is working , and working well in 2013. Another convincing statistic, and a good one, is scoring differential.

The Saints are 61, better than every NFL team except Denver ( 91) and KC ( 70).

If they keep playing like this, the Saints ain’t going anywhere.

john.kryk@sunmedia.ca

@JohnKryk

blogs.canoe.ca/krykslants/

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Saints by the numbers so far in 2013

The New Orleans Saints rank among the best teams in the league on both sides of the ball so far this year:

SCORING DEFENCE

1. Kansas City 11.6 ppg

2. New England 14.0

3. Carolina 14.5

4. New Orleans 14.6

5. Indianapolis 15.8

POINT DIFFERENTIAL

1. Denver 91

2. Kansas City 70

3. New Orleans 61

4. Indianapolis 60

5. Seattle 56

TOTAL OFFENCE

1. Denver 489.8 yards per game

2. Philadelphia 454.8

3. Green Bay 453.3

4. New Orleans 405.0

5. San Diego 402.4

TURNOVER DIFFERENTIAL

1. Kansas City 10

2. Tennessee 8

3. Seattle 7

4. Chicago 7

5. New Orleans 6

6. Indianapolis 6

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Drew Brees improves his numbers in ’13

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees is having a better season in ’13 than he did in ’12 in several key barometers, including these:

2012 2013

Passing yards per game 324 344 (2nd in NFL)

Yards per attempt 7.73 8.57 (4th)

Completion percentage 63.0 69.7% (4th)

Passer rating 96.3 107.4 (4th)

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THE 3 BIG MATCHUPS

Matt Schaub vs. You Know What

Can the Houston Texans QB throw a pick-six for the fifth straight game? Defies belief that he threw one again last week, on his first pass of the game no less. The Rams have a couple of big-play cornerbacks too, especially in Janoris Jenkins. If Schaub struggles, he might not ever get his starting job back.

Aaron Rodgers vs. Ravens pass rush

The Packers this year have done a much better job of protecting the NFL’s best quarterback -- er, the best quarterback not named Peyton. The retooled Ravens defence has harassed quarterbacks better than every team in the league save the Chiefs, with 19 sacks. The Packers need their actually productive run game to churn out yards, to protect Rodgers.

Redskins O-line vs. Cowboys D-line

Washington’s offence has taken a big step backward not just because RG3 isn’t his old self yet. The team has struggled to run early in games as well as last year, putting the team in big holes in the first three games. The Cowboys defence allowed a lot of yards to Denver last week, but all but shut down the Chiefs’ good running attack last month.

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THE BIG NUMBER

35.8

The difference in points-per-game scored by the Broncos (46.0) and Jaguars (10.2). That’s more than five TDs per game difference!

Poll

Do you think the New Orleans Saints are the best team in the NFL right now?